Personal musings on religion, philosophy, music and on occasion, beer.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Mega Belief: Introspection

After watching Evid3nc3's deconversion videos on YouTube over and over again I feel compelled to do a series of blogs. In this particular set of videos the author posits the idea that the reason why it is so hard for Christians to "deconvert" is because their belief isn't one giant all-inclusive belief, but, instead it is a series of smaller beliefs. I liken this to a balloon compared to a building. The more air you fill the balloon with the bigger it gets. But if you take any sharp object like a needle you can pop the balloon with ease. Now there are some Christians who are like balloons and in return are extremely fragile. With one sharp argument for atheism or against Christianity, you can pop their beliefs.

While there are some Christians out there that have belief structures that are built like giant balloons, I would venture to say that the majority of them are more like buildings. Where you have smaller support structures that prop up your beliefs called your "Mega belief". If you take out a support beam, sure you get some structural damage but nothing to serious. In other words you can keep on in your belief. Now, you take out several beams over time and your building or Mega belief begins to fall apart.

As a quick side note I would like to make another distinction between the two. Balloons are incredibly thin walled and highly susceptible to popping contrasted with the thick, rugged exterior of a building that can withstand earthquakes and hurricanes.

I was a balloon Christian. I threw all my beliefs into one big pile until, JENGA!, it all came tumbling down. I crashed and burned hard. I didn't know what to do. I was lost. With no comfort blanket in hand I decided to move on and keep digging and pressing for the truth no matter what kind of pain or despair it brought upon me. I guess in the eyes of an atheist I was the lucky one. I didn't have to continue in my delusions any more. I could embrace the world as it was and is. But thats not how it panned out. I didn't embrace atheism right away. I explored its merits and found it to be the best position to hold about a year later. It gave me room to grow and learn. It gave me the oppurtunity to be wrong and keep seeking the truth. This might seem ridiculous but atheism drove me to become a building type Christian.

I know that is confusing so let me try and explain. Before becoming an atheist, I was an extremely fragile balloon Christian ready to pop. It wasn't until my beliefs popped did I know about other arguments for theism or in this case Christianity. So atheism helped me build a building only to tear it down. I could also say atheism made me a stronger more intelligent Christian and gave me reasons not to believe at the same time. I was discovering Christianity and atheism at the same time and in the end atheism was the stronger case.

In part 2 of this post I will explore my main reasons of disbelief and Christianity's objections.